Featured How-To Videos

Shabu Shabu Recipe しゃぶしゃぶ

It’s the holiday season and it’s the time for friends and family to get together. What’s the best Japanese meal for this occasion? It’s Shabu Shabu!

Shabu shabu is one of Japan’s most popular hot pot dishes along with Sukiyaki. It consists of raw assorted vegetables, tofu, and paper-thin slices of raw beef (or pork) cooked in kombu dashi (broth).

The name “Shabu Shabu” comes from the Japanese sound and action of the thinly sliced meat being swished with chopsticks in the hot pot.

Typically Shabu Shabu is served with broth in a donabe (土鍋) earthenware/clay pot on a portal stove. The raw ingredients are served on two plates, one for the meat and one for all the veggies. It’s a fun meal since everyone sits around the hot pot and cooks together.

As a busy mom, I love this dish because I don’t have to cook – all I need to do is to chop vegetables 15 minutes before dinner and let everyone cook dinner together. It’s a very low fat meal and great way to eat a lot of vegetables! Enjoy this quick and delicious Japanese winter meal!

Get Your Donabe (Earthenware Pot) Ready!

I hope you enjoy making my Shabu Shabu recipe! If you make one of these recipes, snap a picture and hashtag it #JustOneCookbook. I love to see your creations on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter! Thank you so much for reading and till next time!

Arrange all the ingredients on a serving plate. Set a portable gas burner and place ingredient plate on a table. Give each guest a bowl of rice and a bowl for cooked food, and a sauce dish for each ponzu sauce and sesame sauce.

Over the kitchen stove, simmer over a medium heat for about 10 minutes. Take out the kombu when the water starts to boil.

Bring the broth to the boil. Add stem part of napa cabbage and shungiku, Tokyo Negi, carrots, some mushrooms, and tofu. You want to start with the food that take the longest to cook.

Now bring the pot of boiling broth to the table. Each person cook their beef by dipping a slice of beef in the boiling broth with chopsticks. Swish it gently back and forth until the meat changes color (10-20 seconds).

Enjoy the meat by dipping in either sauce. You can add grated daikon and shichimi togarashi in Ponzu Sauce. Take out the cooked food from the pot as they are done and dip them in either sauce.

Add remaining ingredients as necessary in the boiling broth and simmer for a few minutes.

End the meal with Udon noodle. When most or all of the ingredients are taken out from the broth, add Udon noodles in the pot and cook for a few minutes. Flavor udon with just bit of salt and white pepper or dip in Ponzu Sauce.

Notes

* You can purchase sesame sauce and ponzu sauce from Japanese/Asian supermarkets.

Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.

You may also enjoy these recipes

Disclosure: Just One Cookbook is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

I have never had shabu-shabu, but the name is so cute I have always wanted to taste it (even when I had no idea what it was) just because of the name! Now, after devouring your tempting beautiful photos, I know exactly why I want to make it! The taste must be fantastic. Your carrots are sooooo cute! I must buy a carrot cutter and impress my husband 😉 I will remember the enoki washing tip. Very clever and so simple! (As all the best practical tips are!).

Oooh I love shabu shabu, have not made it for such a long time. I have trouble obtaining some ingredients in spain, so this is a dish I have to make if and when I can purchase all ingredients at once, not very often. Love your recipe too.

This is like the steamboat we having here, we put veggie, mushroom, dumplings , seafood, meat, fish balls and etc into broth..we just love it. I have not try shabu-shabu before but I know this is delicious.

Oh my, I just love Shabu Shabu! I order it all the time when we eat at Japanese restaurants. And I learned so much today from your recipe and photos. Never knew that was the correct way to cut the enoki…so now I know better. Thanks for sharing this amazing dish! Happy Fri., Nami!

I can’t get over how pretty your food looks Nami! Quite different from the way we Indians eat 🙂 Very little thought goes into presentation in India… lol… Beautiful photos too, Especially the ingredients shot and the first photo 🙂

Yummy! We love shabu shabu! I am so excited about your sesame sauce recipe, Trini doesn’t care for ponzu dipping sauce, so last time we had hot pot, I bought some sesame sauce from the store for her. 1 dip and she made the worst face! I will try your recipe the next time we have shabu shabu! Have a great weekend!

WOW this looks absolutely delicious and I’m SO glad my computer is finally letting me on your site again!! For some reason it always said blocked and I could never see your wonderful recipes 🙁 Also feel free to stop by my blog and check out the $50 Williams-Sonoma gift card giveaway going on right now! xoxo

This is a wonderful recipe to share Nami! It also happens to be one of my father’s favorite Japanese dishes (he is also a big fan of Sukiyaki) so I will be giving this a try soon. 🙂 I love the concept of everyone cooking together too…that is always a hit for kids. Have a great weekend. Hopefully those high winds didn’t cause too much trouble for you guys. It was wild up here in the mountains!

We must be on the same wavelength. On Wednesday, I was just thinking that it is cold enough now in the Bay Area to make a Hot Pot (Chinese version of Shabu Shabu)! I love this dish too because it is so easy to make. Everyone just gather up at the self-service cooking “station” and cook, eat, and enjoy each other’s company. I’ll be making this tomorrow night. =)

Yay, I don’t think I had shabu shabu before, although I’ve definitely had sukiyaki and I LOVE it.

“The name “Shabu Shabu” comes from the Japanese sound and action of the thinly sliced meat being swished with chopsticks in the hot pot.”

That’s why I love blogging – finding out all these things which I probably wouldn’t normally. I can’t believe the dish is named after that… that’s so fun 😀 I agree too – it’s so great because you spend a bit of time chopping and then everyone can sit down and talk and enjoy and cook together… great family experience! Your bowl looks so beautifully arranged… My pot I use for Sukiyaki is WAY too big and so it’s like throwing a mushroom into a swimming pool. All the things bob around all over the place in the stock, instead of staying still and simmering away nicely 🙁

My wife was describing to me how she loves Shabu Shabu because I’ve never had it before. Okay Nami, Japanese food and I don’t have to cook. . . I think that is something I can do. 🙂 I love all the ingredients especially those beautiful-looking beef. Have a good weekend, Nami! 🙂

Ah my husband and I love this! shabu shabu! Such a fun name to say, too! It’s similar to a dish that I used to have in Korea – I love that there are so many similarities between Japanese and Korean food (well, other than all the spicy food, of course). I think it’s a fairly “expensive” dish in Korea, too. I think the one we have in Korea is what they used to serve the kings and queens. Pretty fancy, I must say! Can’t wait to try this recipe, Nami! Thanks for sharing!

Your step by step instructions and photographs are amazing. Hey, I make carrot flowers, too and my daughter will say you don’t have to do this, just for the soup or salad. and i like these cooking together type of dinners.

I’ve never had shabu shabu but will start looking for any restaurants in town that serve it because I’d heard of it in the past and it sounds very tasty.

By the way, with Christmas coming, do you ever use furoshiki techniques in your gift wrapping? I just saw a cooking program today and they had a guest who wrapped a flat package using the technique as well as creating a ‘handbag’ to hold a number of different gifts. It looks like a lot of fun and would be a great way to wrap bottles which are often given as gifts at this time of year.

Furoshiki is a cloth and very flexible to wrap something hard to wrap with paper – like a wine bottle. We don’t use furoshiki to wrap something anymore. We usually use it to carry it. You bring a wine so wrap it and bring, but you bring back your furoshiki home. Also when you dress up in Kimono, you use furoshiki to carry things as well. Over all we started to see very less furoshiki around… I’m glad you enjoyed the show. 🙂

I agree, sometimes the days/weeks/months seem to fly by. I can see how this is a great way to get the kids to eat lots of veggies. I really love the shapes you make with the carrots. I keep meaning to try this! Another beautiful post!

I am with you on that — this year has flown by crazy fast. It feels like it should be May, not December! The only saving grace is that this time of year brings such warm, hearty dishes like these. I mean, I guess you could eat this in the summer, but it just wouldn’t be the same when you’re wearing shorts and flip-flops. 😉

Ahh! Shabu-shabu! Why I never thought that the name comes from the sizzling sound and action of meat in the hotpot. It makes complete sense!:) The hotpot is gaining its popularity in Penang & I’m glad that you’re sharing your recipe here. My favorites are always the sliced beef and mushrooms. Yummy! We’ll be having our annual hotpot (Malaysian-Chinese style) soon too…holiday is definitely here. Have a great week, Nami!

I love shabu shabu :)! In Germany we like to do raclette or fondue, which are similar to shabu shabu – they’re great for family gathering, but shabu shabu is indeed healthier. It’s a good time to hot pot again, it’s getting terribly cold over here and now we’re just waiting for the snow to come…

Exactly! I was just chatting with my friend last week and arrived at the same point about next year being just next month! The Chinese also loves their hot pot this time of the year – one reason being Chinese New Year is approaching and hot pot is quite common in reunion meals and gatherings.

You know after Sushi this is my favorite Japanese dish – i order it all the time. Unfortunatly some place don’t make it as fancy as in Japane. I love how you get this huge hot boiling pot of water in the center of the table – oh yum so good. Also every time i make this at home i have to go and get thinly carved meet at the Asian store – since in the regular grocery store they don’t carve the meet that thin.

I have never had shabu shabu before until last week when we went to Jusco mall in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. We decided our dinner in a Japanese restaurant that serve individual mini hot pots. I’m so sorry to say that the food wasn’t nice and very expensive(5 of us, 3 adults and 2 kids had a RM$200 plus meal)! We’ll never ever go back there again. I’ll just refer to this post if I want to have shabu shabu again! 😉

*I always cut and wash my enoki this way too bcoz it’s easier as they will not be ‘washed’ away into the sink. Hee.. 🙂

Shabu shabu and sukiyaki are my favourites too especially during winter months. It is such a great way to eat because friends can just cook whatever they like. I especially like the raw beef to be just slightly cooked and the dipping sauces are another attraction.

Shabu shabu, or Hot Pot in Chinese, has to be one of my all time favorite ways to enjoy fresh meat and vegetables.

The Shabu shabu gives more thoughts to the ingredients while many versions of hot pot put quite some emphasis on the broth base. But I love all types of shabu shabu and hot pot especially in this winter season!

Hello. Good evening India time. Every item presented in the most elegant manner. I respect your Quality Care for the foods. Loved it. I would replace Beef slice or Pork with properly baked Potato Slice; if to make it Vegetarian..!!! Would it work? Me sure it should. Potato slice baked and pasted with little salt and black pepper..

Hi Dr. Sharma! I don’t think baked potao slices would work here as they get soggy in a boiling stock, but you can substitute with chicken or other kinds of meat/seafood or simply use vegetables. Hope that helps. 🙂

So as you suggested, we had shabu shabu last night. It was awesome, you would think sukiyaki is tastier, but the broth becomes tasty and i had shabu shabu at the restaurant and already liked the two different sauces. I tried your ponzu, but i like the recipe i use better (i infuse a piece of kombu and a little bit of katsuobushi in 120mL of shoyu overnight, then filter it and add 4tbsp mirin, 4tbsp of lemon juice and 4tbsp of mandarine juice. You can use whatever, 4tbsp sour citrus juice, 4tbsp sweet citrus, i like to mix them and do with what i have : yuzu juice, blood orange, limes…). On the other hand, just reading the ingredients of your sesame sauce and i knew this would be the best one i ever had, and i was right. I like the heat of the raw sake and mirin, and even though the alcohol level is low, im not supposed to take alcohol so i stress. Is there any extra step i could take, like evaporate the alcool of sake and mirin before mixing them to the other ingredients or something…? Thank you so much again, ill be making hot pots all winter if you have other ideas !

I love this meal so much! After my family eats the udon, we add raw eggs and rice and cook it in the remaining broth. This is my favorite part, mainly because I like eggs. ^^ I must eat shabu shabu now… Thanks for sharing this recipe!

Hi Victoria! You can cook on the gas stove first and serve too, but it’s more fun to cook at the table (it’s a fun part of hot pot). You can get a portable gas stove like this (http://amzn.to/1E07V4B). That way, you can cook meat when you want to eat, and it doesn’t get hard. Same for vegetables. There’s something about cooking right in front of you and pick up and eat right away. Vegetables won’t be wilted as much. Hope I answered to your question…? 🙂

Hello! I was interested in making this recipe, but have no clay pot to make it in. Could you recommend me a Japanese one I could order online? Also, after moving it to the table will it continue to stay hot enough?

Hi Jesse! Sure you can, although they are not “typical” ingredients for Shabu Shabu. Honestly, you can put any veggies of your choice (even cabbage of broccoli for example, which are not typical). Hope you enjoy this recipe!